Well, I think you made a good choice, even though it's disappointing that it won't be there as quickly. I think it will save you some headaches so you can just focus on the build process!
Printable View
Well, I think you made a good choice, even though it's disappointing that it won't be there as quickly. I think it will save you some headaches so you can just focus on the build process!
My 10" i3v came in yesterday and started the build yesterday evening. Have an iPad next to my build area to play the build videos and follow along. So far build is going very nicely, all parts are there and no issues to deal with yet. Going together quite well. Colin did a great job on the videos, but I really would have liked to see a DVD with the build videos with a menu system to navigate easily to the right building section. Wouldn't be expensive to do and would add some value to an already great kit.
Just got home from work and after a bite to eat I'm going to start on the frame assembly. I'm enjoying the build and am taking my time since half the fun for me is building and configuring, so I'm in no rush. I figure I should be ready to fire up and start calibration Saturday afternoon, but I'll see how it goes.
Thanks for all the advice from previous posters in this forum. Even though I had read most of it before, now that I have the kit and I'm assembling it these posts make a lot more sense.
I got my 10" I3v 2 weeks ago and love it! took me about 10hrs to build. been making spare parts and small upgrades for it.
I should be fixing my order tonight, so mine should ship early next week. I think I am going to go the route of gmay3, and spray paint the wood pieces before putting them together.
Some great info here guys. I am very seriously considering this printer.
I originally was going to buy a Wanhao Duplicator 4. They seem to have a decent following, and since they are modeled off the Makerbots alot of the support for them carries over.
I generally dont mind kits, but this being my first 3D printer I was leaving toward an assembled printer.
The Wanhao seems like it would be very sturdy since it has a full case, they actually just released the Duplicator 4S, that has an all steel case.
Do you guys feel the Prusa printers are made well as far as being sturdy and ridged?
One thing I seem to be hung up on is build volume. I dont neeeeed it to be huge, but I really dont want to run into things I want to print but cant due to size.
The Wanhao has a build volume of 225mm x 145mm x 150mm, vs. the Prusa 10" being 254mm x 254mm
I also like that the Prusa is upgradable, and I see there are already larger heated beds available.
Really wish they had a 12" x 12" kit !!!!!!!! I would buy that for sure!
I dont want to deal with modding it right at first though, since this is my first printer, I think it would be best to build it stock. Then maybe upgrade later.
The Wanhaos are also enclosed. Do any of you feel that the open design of the Prusa hurts your prints?
I have read that having an enclosure helps with printer ABS.
I suppose I could eventually build some sort of lexan box to place over the Prusa.
I assume the software side of things is good with the Prusa also?
As far as being able to use the typical softwares like ReplicatorG, Makerware, Sli3r? (I plan to print from SD card)
What about the firmware thats on the Prusa, is it considered to be good firmware?
Thanks for the help guys, itching to order one!
usarmyaircav,
I just wanted to clarify that it was printbus that spray painted his parts before assembly. Mine's still the bare wood but if I had to do it again I would spray paint em! :D
Thanks for the clarification gmay3! :) I just got notification that my 10" I3v shipped!
That's great! Also, I should mention that I used thread locker blue on every structural screw without a locknut that did not need to be calibrated or adjusted in the future.
Just to avoid any confusion, some examples of where not to put threadlocker would be the bed leveling screws, screws used to mount the 3d printed extruder parts or hot end to the x carriage, and essentric spacer assemblies. Also do not use threadlocker when the nylon locking nuts are required.
Some examples of where to use threadlocker would be the x and y carriage structures and frame screws where a nut trap is used with a non locking nut.
If you have any questions during your build, Colin is a great resource, but also feel free to ask all of us!
I finished my printer this weekend and printed out a few test prints. Overall it looks pretty good, but a few areas of the print could be improved like the top layer is not smooth. It looks like there is not enough material on the top horizontal surface after the infill. Maybe the infill should stop a couple of layers sooner and the top surface should be solid for a thicker surface. Maybe a design issue of the tool holder, I'm not really sure. If you look at the first picture you can see inside the square recess and see the honeycomb infill pattern like the solid layer over the top of the surface is not thick enough and the top horizontal surface did not come out smooth at all. It looks like it needs more PLA extruded for solid horizontal surfaces. Not sure. Here's a tool holder from Thingiverse and this took 14hrs to print.
Attachment 2528
The vertical surfaces look pretty good except for the cupping at all the corners. I'm not sure what's causing that, but layer heights look consistent.
Attachment 2529
Here's 2 more from different angles.
Attachment 2530Attachment 2531
The pictures look like there are some small gaps between layers, but there are no gaps. Just bad lighting, bad iPhone camera, and bad photographer (me). I made the mistake of using a heated bed with PLA and blue tape, I thought that was what I was supposed to do. Getting this off the build plate was seriously difficult even after a 2 hr cool down and I still have some tape adhered to the bottom of the print that will need to be scraped off I guess unless anyone has a good trick to get rid of the tape. I will try blue tape without heat and see if that helps with print release while still holding well during a print. The bottom covered very well and it looks like if I want a smooth bottom blue tape is not going to be the answer since the bottom has the transferred the tape texture and lines to the bottom surface of the print. Here is the bottom.
Attachment 2534
I'm not unhappy with the first prints, although the first 2 prints weren't great until I measured the distance from either side of the build plate to the underside of the X axis aluminum extrusion and adjust the Z nuts until the extrusion was level to the bed (why wasn't this step in the instructions? Seems kind of important) and this made a very big difference in the squareness of the test prints . I did print a few small parts before the tool holder print, but I really wanted to know if the printer could sustain long print jobs without issue. At 14 hrs this gives me confidence that the printer is reasonably built and just needs a bit of tweaking here and there. The motors never got that hot, even the extruder motor. I could hold my finger on the motor indefinitely even at the 14hr mark, so I guess the driver must be close to a good adjustment. I also haven't really done any calibration yet either other than bed leveling, but my next step will be to calibrate the filament feed rate.
Like I said, I'm pretty happy with the early results and I'm sure this is going to work fine for the prototyping I want to do with this printer. I just need to address some fine tuning issues at this point. If any of you see obvious areas I should consider changing/adjusting please feel free to comment. All I've done so far is pretty much stock build and stock settings, so I'm sure there is lots of room for improvement. Comments welcome!
Drone - you're using slic3r v0.9.9, right? Maybe someone has a miracle solution for it, but being light on topfill seems to be a common complaint with it. There's a thread here somewhere with experiments related to eliminating that on the top of a knob.
On the blue tape - just rubbing the tape remnants with a wet finger has worked for me. I have found that if I clean the tape with alcohol before printing, there's almost a permanent bond between PLA and the tape. Regardless of bed temperature.
A couple of us would be curious to know the part number or type number shown on the stepper motor labels. That'd tell us whether Colin has moved to a different motor, possibly explaining why motors aren't getting hot for some people.
EDIT: Here's the other thread. Use of a print cooler was proven by clough42 to be something that would make a difference. http://3dprintboard.com/showthread.p...nner-questions
printbus, what size head did you get and do you print with PLA or ABS more? My kit will get here on Friday, so I will post the part #'s
Some of us put info like that in our signature line for reference - I have a 0.40mm Hexagon. My print log shows about 25% ABS and 75% PLA. I sort of go in waves. Color is a key driver - I think black is the only color I have in both ABS and PLA. Right now my preference is to print using PLA.
Yeah, I'm using Slic3r 0.9.9 as recommended by Colin. Is 1.1.7 better for this? Or should I consider Cura? I guess I'll try 1.1.7 and 1.2.0 experimental (probably not ready for primetime, but I'll give it a shot anyway on a small part)
Denatured alcohol and a bit of rubbing got rid of the excess tape and residue with no harm to the print, so I guess that will work.
Here is the tag on the extruder motor:
Attachment 2537
I just printed a Z axis endstop mount without heat and with blue tape and it worked well. So it looks like I won't be using the heated bed for PLA unless others think there is a good reason to use heat. Haven't tried ABS yet. I do have a roll, but thought I would get PLA working right first, and since I'm printing inside my house I have no idea what the fumes from ABS would be like. The smell from PLA is not an issue, but from what others have posted ABS might be.
Yep. Different motor. AFAIK, the "hot" ones are 42BHH48-050-24A.
EDIT: So that search engines pick it up, the type number in drone's servo picture is 42BHH48-151K-24B. That's likely a 4V 1.5 amp motor, a better fit.
Thanks for the picture Drone and thanks printbus for the part number breakdown.
Hmm, I suspect I have the hot ones as well. I haven't any issues as they have not gotten hot enough to melt the ABS extruder or anything, they just run extremely hot to the touch. I'll check the number and report back.
I'm so glad to see this. But sad that I've got the old motors.
Looks like Colin is importing these things in tremendous quantities: https://www.importgenius.com/importers/maker-farm-inc
2075KG of motors is a lot of motors.
clough42, I'm interested to know if you are planning to switch to the new motors if they are available.
Do you think it's worth a complete or partial swap?
Just got my 10" up and running. One great upgrade you can do in your second print for the 10" is the i3v 10" Z Endstop Brack by MiniMadRyan. This makes bed leveling, starting at the nylon spacer corner, faster. Stock, I found the M5 T-nut bolt was obstructed by the Z-axis coupling and was a clumsy way to adjust with precision. I was up then down then up then down as the stop would shift up and down while I tightened it. In contrast, I found bed level Nirvana when combined with a set of small thumbscrews for the other 3x M3 nylon locknuts at.
As an aside, my 10" kit came with extra T-nuts for the aluminum extrusions so mounting the bracket was didn't require any hardware purchases. It also had extra M3 screws to use for the adjustment screw. I find that the head to the adjustment screw is mostly blocked by the top idler which means the hex driver is difficult to use, but I was able to fine tune from the side using a pair of needle nose pliers.
gmay, you wouldn't have to get replacement motor(s) from just MakerFarm. Starting with the info here - http://reprap.org/wiki/Stepper_motor, you'd want a two-phase NEMA17 with specs of 3-5 volts, 1-1.5A, and a holding torque greater than 40 N-cm (or 56 oz-in). You'd want a 5mm diameter shaft, preferably flatted. I bought a 76 oz-in Kysan 1124090 on eBay to use for the extruder so I won't have to worry about heat or the weight and bulk of the motor fan & shroud, but I haven't installed it yet. You'd likely want to keep the two Z-motors identical, but other than that all the motors don't have to be the same.
You should be able to make adjustments using a ball ended allen wrench, I use this type to adjust the screw easily. Adjusting using pliers sounds like a pain...but it sure still beats the stock method.
Attachment 2595
Ok thanks for the info guys, I don't think I'll need to upgrade quite yet!
Thanks everyone for the comments on my endstop! Maybe I'll get around to revising it one of these days. Finally got the i3v calibrated half-decently and printed out a calibration cube last night. Aside from my steppers running a bit warm (which I'll adjust the pots for) it ran very well. The overall speed was a bit slow (around 20 minutes to print the cube) so I will be playing with that in the next few days...
.Attachment 2607
congratulations!
Well after some more research I decided on the Prusa i3v 10"
Placed my order on the 31st. Now I am watching for an email saying it has shipped, very excited !!!
I have ordered both PLA and ABS filament, seems PLA is easier to work with, but I think I might start with ABS,
only due to the fact that there are some printer parts I want to get printed right after I do a few test prints.
Improved Hex Cooling
Stepper Motor Cooler
Additional Fan Cooling Duct
End Stop Adjustment Bracket
What other replacement printer parts should I print first? And where can I get the files for these?
Also, what is the main programs you guys like for the Prusa?
I have played around with some of the software, I think I like Sli3er the best, but wasnt sure if it liked the Prusa ?
And are you choosing the RepRap printer as printer type in these programs?
Didnt know if there was anything in particular I needed to do as far as settings for this particular printer. (aside from the typical trial and error tuning)
You may not need the shroud for the extruder motor. Sounds like the newer kits come with motors better suited for the printer application, and these don't get so hot.
Files for replacement printer parts are available through links Colin provides in the build guide.
Yes on the rep rap printer type. Slic3r v0.9.9 is a good choice to start with since MakerFarm provides pretailored configuration files that give you a jump on getting started, although some of the settings undergo second-guessing here. Again, these files are available through links in the build guide. Slic3r has its nuances, and some move on to another slicer shortly after getting the printer up and running.
I can confirm printbus's comment about the new motors. My extruder motor hardly gets warm even towards the end of arduous 6 hour prints.
I would also recommend getting your settings squared away with some test objects, e.g. the LFS elephant is fun print and give away (even if it isn't perfect). Then print a backup extruder using the STL file links in the build guide, as printbus mentioned. In my experience, I had to do totally separate optimization processes for PLA and ABS, so I might expect that you will want to spend some time with each material. I started with PLA and blue painter's tape and MakerFarm's settings for Slic3r v0.9.9 and my hollow cube first print "just worked," so I might recommend you start with that. No so much for ABS: getting the prints not to warp was a huge trial and error process that ended up with me using ABS slurry on straight glass and using Cura as the slicer.
My printer came today!!!!!! All I got to do was open the box though. :( Hoping to spray paint the wood parts tomorrow. Soo exicited!!!!!
Congratulations!
For paint, if you are going to take all of the wood pieces apart and remove the the squares and holes that will hold screws and wood to wood joints, I would recommend using a thin lacquer and give it about 4 thin coats. If you go with a high build paint, the pieces may not fit well and you will end up having to really press thing together which might risk breaking them. Even with the lacquer, I had this problem in two spots. I had to resist the temptation to use the screws to pull everything together because they would star tot deform the nut captive in the wood. My trusty rubber mallet worked, at my kid's suggestion (hurray for brute force).
I went with $5 black spray lacquer from a large retail home improvement store (two cans). I believe Clough42 did something similar.
I agree. If you're going to paint the wood, do not remove the scrap pieces until painting is done. This makes assembly much easier, not having paint in the holes and on the tabs.